From addicted newborn to aspiring ballerina

Wednesday

Jan 2, 2008 at 3:05 PM

HARRIMAN — When Rafaela Figueroa Dench takes the stage at the Youth America Grand Prix 2008 Regional Semi-Finals this month, her performance will include a solo variation from "Paquita," a ballet in which the heroine is saved during a massacre as an infant and is raised by Gypsies.

Carmen Ramos

HARRIMAN — When Rafaela Figueroa Dench takes the stage at the Youth America Grand Prix 2008 Regional Semi-Finals this month, her performance will include a solo variation from "Paquita," a ballet in which the heroine is saved during a massacre as an infant and is raised by Gypsies.

What few people know about Rafaela are the details of her real-life escape from a strained foster-care system.

Born Jan. 6, 1998, Rafaela was immediately taken from her birth mother, who had long struggled with substance abuse. While in foster care, she was offered to John and Amy Dench, residents of Bloomingdale, N.J.

The Denches had active careers, and bringing an infant into their home was not what they had in mind. Rafaela was gently refused, not once, but four times. A fifth call from the social worker was the agency's final cry for help. Amy was briefed on Rafaela's medical condition, and learned that the baby needed housing for just 30 days. If refused again, Rafaela would become a boarder baby, living in the hospital with limited nurturing and human touch.

Amy reluctantly gave in, her worst fears confirmed when she first saw Rafaela. "(She) was not a full-term baby. I could tell," says Amy of the infant she took into her home when Rafaela was just days old. The baby could not open her eyes, move or even cry. She suffered shakes, tremors from the chemical dependency passed down to her from her biological mother, and even doctors were not optimistic about her future.

Rafaela stayed with the Denches, who now live in Harriman, beyond those 30 days. She endured the shakes for about a year, but even with that no longer a concern, she battled other health issues, mainly affecting her immune system. She was anemic, and being diagnosed with asthma caused her to require the occasional steroid treatment, which compromised her immune system during the first few years of her life.

But she overcame every health condition she endured. When the Denches legally adopted Rafaela, they considered changing her name until Amy learned that Rafaela means "God has healed." She could not bring herself to change it.

The Denches took Rafaela everywhere as a child: the museum, the ballet and the symphony, just to stimulate her brain. One day, a 3-year-old Rafaela pointed to a Sunburst Pageant poster at the mall, telling her mother she wanted the crown. Amy was skeptical, but soon after, Rafaela was participating in one pageant a month.

The pageants included talent performances, and there was no doubt that Rafaela's talent was dance. The time came when Amy asked her daughter to choose between beauty pageants and ballet.

"Thank God she chose ballet," says Amy, relieved that, at age 4, her daughter was able to make the decision on her own.

Rafaela has been dancing ever since.

Rafaela's birth mother was from Puerto Rico and her biological father from Guatemala. John and Amy try to expose their daughter to different Hispanic cultures. They go to the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City and wave Puerto Rican and Guatemalan flags. They talk about the Mayan Indians, and every year Rafaela's birthday is not complete without the piñata. Last year, while students brought cupcakes to school on their birthday, Amy brought in boñuelos (a sweet fried doughnut kind of dessert from Ecuador) for all to share.

A seemingly typical 9-year-old, with a cat and a dog, more than one BFF (Best Friend Forever), and an addiction to webkinz.com, Rafaela is quite far from it. She loves classical music and ballet. She will choose Josh Groban and Michael Bublé over Hannah Montana any day. Rafaela loves to dance and go the extra mile. She loves the pain. If what she does is not challenging, it is not any fun.

Rafaela's routine on weekdays consists of school, dance, homework and Web access with a 9 p.m. bedtime, an impossibility were it not for her self-discipline.

At this point in her life, Rafaela is most excited about the upcoming Youth America Grand Prix, which promotes educational and professional opportunities for young dancers who come together from all over the world. The dancers compete in hopes of obtaining scholarships to leading dance schools in the U.S. and abroad, which can lead to winning contracts with international ballet companies, including the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company.

In addition to dancing every day at the Dance Design School in Cornwall, which is directed by Aggie Kimple, two sessions per week are private and devoted to Rafaela's preparation for the semi-finals, which begin this month in Torrington, Conn. She hopes they will lead her to the finals, to be held in New York City in April.

The adult version of a solo variation from "Paquita," a 19th-century ballet set in Spain, will prove challenging during the competition because of her age, but dance instructor and choreographer Natasha Bar has utmost confidence in her pupil and pushes her to the limit. All this with no objection from Rafaela, who says, "I don't really care how hard it is. I'll go through the pain."